Examined changes in beliefs and instruction of (n=21) primary grade teachers over a 4-year period in which the teachers participated in a CGI (Cognitively Guided Instruction) teacher development program that focused on helping teachers understand the development of children's mathematics thinking. (Author/MKR)

Four studies examined the influence of essentialist information such as internal properties and perceptual similarity on 3-, 4-, and 5-year olds' interpretations of labels. Results suggested that children have essentialist beliefs about animals, but not about artifacts, and that these beliefs interact with children's assumptions about word meaning…

Maintains that Muller and Overton (1998) misrepresent her theory of infant concept formation in infancy, makes corrections to their representation, and notes that her theory was developed in part because of the lack of detailed mechanisms in Piaget's theory to account for concept formation. Argues that Muller and Overton's proposed alternative…

Presents several student responses to viewing a can-crushing demonstration in which a soda can containing a small amount of water was heated on a hot-plate to boil the water, removed from the heat, and sealed by inverting over a container of cold water. Students were given a quiz, made predictions, and explained what happened on a molecular level.…

Studied the influence of task characteristics on the characteristics of elaboration of conceptual knowledge in social interaction using 40 secondary school students working in dyads on a collaborative task in 1 of 4 conditions. A phase of individual preparation created better learning results. In the concept mapping condition, elaboration was…

A longitudinal study of students (n=250) following the Salters Advanced Chemistry course probed a range of chemical ideas including the exothermicity of bond formation and the development of thinking about covalent, ionic, and intermolecular bonds. At the start, many students demonstrated misunderstandings about these chemical ideas, but their…

Presents an inquiry into students' conceptual development of a graphics calculator function for direction. Discusses reflective thinking and reflective enculturation, operational and structural understanding, and situated abstraction. (Contains 33 references.) (Author/ASK)

Three experiments examined the relative importance of original function and current function in artifact categorization for young children and adults. It was concluded that 6-year-olds have begun to organize their understanding of artifacts around the notion of original function, whereas 4-year-olds have not. Data were examined in terms of how…

Describes connectionist model showing exclusivity asymmetries when categorizing visual stimuli, similar to pattern shown by infants. Examines asymmetries in terms of an associative learning mechanism, distributed internal representations, and statistics of feature distributions in the stimuli. Details test of model with infants, finding that…

Reports on how a teaching strategy called "schematisation of concepts" could influence the learning capability of upper junior high school students. Teaching was planned and implemented within the framework of environmental education. A water module was chosen for the teaching session. (Author/SAH)

Analyzes the language used to introduce forms of energy in order to determine possible inconsistencies and limitations of validity judged from the viewpoint of thermodynamics. (Author/MM)

Explores the effectiveness of concept mapping, the learning cycle, expository instruction, and a combination of concept mapping/learning cycle in promoting conceptual understanding of diffusion and osmosis. Concludes that the concept mapping/learning cycle and concept mapping treatment groups significantly outperformed the expository treatment…

Explains the benefits of using plastinated specimens on students' conceptual understanding. Argues for dropping the dissection component from introductory biology courses due to threatened animal populations and the high cost of providing some of the specimens. Describes how to use plastinated specimens in an investigative laboratory approach.…

Two experiments documented that conceptual knowledge influences 3-year-olds' extension of novel words. When objects were described as having conceptual properties typical of artifacts, children extended novel labels on the basis of shape. When same objects were described as having conceptual properties typical of animate kinds, children extended…

Describes a classroom experiment using hand-held computer algebra systems (CAS) for the learning of algebra with the aim of developing the conception of a parameter as a means for generalization. The idea of the instrumentation of information and communications technology tools turned out to be fruitful in the interpretation of the students'…